Lawrence Welk in surreal-land

May 23, 2007 Lawrence Welk in surreal-land

Several times, I have discussed how great music and musicians inspire me as a trial lawyer. See here and here.

On the opposite end of the scale are musicians — no matter how talented — who do their public best to satisfy the elevator music/easy listening/Muzak set who want music that merely superficially soothes and that is music in name only. Lawrence Welk firmly served that widespread demand for many years — where I would see at least a few dancing audience members wearing sport jackets matching the design on their couches — or so I thought until I saw this surreal video (thanks to Last One Speaks for posting the clip of Lawrence Welk’s production team on acid), where Mr. Bubbles ultimately reassures everyone that he caters exclusively to the elevator music set.

The great musician and bandleader Sun Ra (great, yes, but what was with his claim to have come from another planet?) cautioned not to dismiss the music of Neil Sedaka, Barry Manilow or the King Family, in that all music has importance if it is important to somebody. Trial lawyers, of course, need to keep in mind that the juror whose year is complete only by a Neil Sedaka or Wayne Newton concert is as important as any other juror. However, does that mean I need to torture myself with a Wayne Newton Vegas extravaganza concert to relate to one particular (and hopefully very narrow, but probably wider than I wish) segment of my jury pool?